Financial recruitment firm Sheffield Haworth has put together a list of 250 female equity analysts ranging from the junior ranks to upper echelons of management, while a number of other firms said they were courting women's networks in the City of London.

In these negotiations Britain will demand safeguards to protect Britain's position in the single market and guarantees to ensure that the position of the City of London is not jeopardised in a beefed up eurozone.

Volker Kauder, at the CDU conference in Leipzig, said: I can understand that the British don't want that a transactions tax when they generate almost 30% of their gross domestic product from financial-market business in the City of London.

David Cameron has threatened to wield Britain's veto to block a revision of the Lisbon treaty if fellow European leaders refuse to protect the position of the City of London at the EU summit in Brussels .

While the fund's financial logic may make sense in the City of London, that probably won't fly in the bureaucratic nerve center of Kasumigaseki because changes at Japan Tobacco would hurt Ministry of Finance's interests.